Nominet, the Domain Registry for .uk .co.uk .org.uk .me.uk .ltd.uk .net.uk .plc.uk are about to start their Research with .uk rights holders

As outlined at the registrar meeting on 21 January 2016 (Astutium attended), Nominet is conducting market research into the take-up of the right of first refusal for .uk domains by rights holders.

Survey work is scheduled to take place between 29 March and 18 April and will be conducted by our MRS accredited research providers, Insight Engineers and Toluna. During this time, registrants who hold .uk rights (whether they have taken up their right or not) may receive an email inviting them to participate in a 10 minute web-based survey.

This research will deliver insights into the business about awareness of .uk and the right of first refusal, motivations and barriers to uptake of .uk, as well as information about domain use. In addition, this will provide some robust facts and figures that Nominet will share to support registrar sales and marketing efforts.

Due to the number of interviews required to deliver a reliable dataset, an incentive will be used to encourage participation. This incentive will be fully managed by our research provider, Insight Engineers, and includes an optional prize draw for up to £200 with a further option to donate the prize money to charity.

If you have any queries or concerns relating to this research then please be reassured that this is a genuine research project being undertaken on behalf of Nominet. Your participation is entirely optional but would be appreciated and you may contact Nominet directly with any concerns related to the project.

The Council of European National Top-Level-Domain Registries (CENTR) has published their summary of last weeks ICANN-55 Meeting …

TL:DR; Highlights

Volunteer shortage / fatigue is a very real problem for the multi-stakeholder model

ccNSO charter to be revised and updated

GAC as usual had a lot to say, thinking their opinion is more important than everyone elses

ccNSO approves the Final proposal from the Accountability CCWG almost unanimously

You can read their SWOT analysis here https://meetings.icann.org/en/marrakech55/schedule/tue-ccnso-members/presentation-ccwg-final-report-08mar16-en.pdf

etc

It’s a good summary of the proceedings from the meeting (despite some grammer/english issues confusing a few points) and well worth a detailed read for anyone interested in Domains, DNS, WHOIS, and ICANN/IANA

Despite numerous headlines throughout the year of hacks, exploits and data-breaches (many of which have led to millions in losses for the business concerned) end-users are still the weakest point in any security system – either through social engineering or simply for using incredibly simple passwords 🙁

This is the list of the most commonly used passwords and access-codes from 2015 if any of yours are on this list CHANGE THEM NOW

Astutium will be taking part in the @LINX workshops on the DIPB aka snoopers charter on Tuesday 23rd feb 2016
This workshop will explore how the Bill will affect “network operators”, and discuss our opportunities to influence the legislative process.

The IPB covers 4 main areas:

Interception

Data Retention

Access to Communications Data

Equipment Interference

with massive implications for every internet user for their security, freedom, rights and obligations.

The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has made significant criticisms of the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill, arguing that

the Government has missed the opportunity to provide the clarity and assurance which is badly needed

Similarly the Joint Committee on the Investigatory Powers Bill has made 86 recommendations for improvement, including:

The Bill should make clear the intention of the Government’s policy to seek access to protected communications and data when required by a warrant

That the goverment should NOT be requiring encryption keys to be compromised or backdoors installed on to systems

Demanding if bulk powers are to be included in the Bill, a fuller justification for each should also be published alongside the Bill

That the government must do more to conclusively prove the case for Internet Connection Records

and much more

What is far more scary beyond the content of the bill itself (and missed by many commentators) is that the primary purpose of this legislation is simply to make ‘legal’ the mass-surveillance of communications that the UK Government is already doing to us all.

Nominet, the Registry for .uk, .co.uk, .org.uk and .me.uk domains has announced effective 1st March 2106 that it will be increasing the cost of domains to all .UK domain registrars by 50% and changing the standard registration period to 1 year.

Other .uk domains (gov.uk, ac.uk etc) are not controlled by Nominet and not changing price or periods at this time

To lock in your pricing before the industry-wide price rises, we recommend that you renew/extend your domains by 29th February.

What is Changing ?

The registry-registrar wholesale price is increasing 50%

This means that it is necessary for Astutium to increase the price we charge for all .uk, .co.uk, .org.uk and .me.uk domain name registrations and renewals inline with the increased costs to us.

Pricing has been standardised so that multi-year registrations are no longer at a discount

This means Astutium will change the default registration and renewal period on .uk domains to 1 year (from the 2 years we use now), as there is no longer a (registry provided) multi-year discount – however Astutium will continue to provide our clients with discounted rates for multi-year registrations and renewals.

Nominet are changing their Terms and Conditions for the registration/use of the .UK family of domain extensions.

Following the Nominet pahse-out of the automaton and migration to an EPP based registry, Astutium will be adding functionality to the Client Portal to allow for .uk contact address / phone / email updates online

Nominet will be running promotions around .UK for Accredited Registrars (of which Astutium are one) – details will be posted to the blog, website and in the newsletter as they are announced/available

To make incoming .uk Domain Transfers simpler for clients all our Nominet TAGs have been consolidated into the single “ASTUTIUM” TAG rather than being specific to the type of service(s) you have

What is the New Price ?

Our new pricing will be 4.99 GBP (ex VAT) per year for .UK, .CO.UK, ORG.UK and .ME.UK with discounts for multi-year registrations/renewals

Astutium are committed to providing the best value domain registration, renewal and transfer pricing for all TLDs (extensions). At GBP 4.99+vat/year we continue to be the cheapest UK Accredited Domain Registrar – 40% cheaper than 123-Reg/Webfusion, GoDaddy, 1&1/Schlund, NamesCo and many others who have all announced increases to 6.99 per year

Why are Nominet increasing the prices ?

The current Nominet board has decided that a price increase is necessary due to increased spend on other projects combined with intense competition between the all the new domain extensions

Russell Haworth, Nominet CEO said:

We’re (Nominet) committed to running a first class service for .UK registrants, including our renowned customer service, and we’re doing more than ever before to ensure the .UK space is a safe and trusted home for all.
But costs have risen considerably since we last changed the price, and we need to compete in a promotion-driven industry.

Whilst the price increase is significant in %age terms, it is the first increase to .uk pricing since we became a Nominet member in 1999, and .co.uk/.org.uk/.me.uk remains one of the cheapest and easiest to register ccTLDs available today.

The Nominet board have refused to commit to any fixed-period for this pricing structure, so .uk registrants should be aware that it is highly likely we will see regular future price increases in line with GTLDs who increase prices on average every 2 years

What do Astutium Advise ?

Our advice is to avoid the price increase if you can by taking action immediately, before the new pricing takes effect on 1st March 2016…

Claiming any .UK domain you are interested in and have rights to as a .co.uk registrant immediately using our dedicated “claim your .uk” page in the Client Portal atClaim Your dotUK Domain Name

Transfer any .uk domain names you have registered elsewhere to Astutium (for free #2) to take advantage of our cheaper renewal pricing than other registrars atBulk Domain Transfers

Notes:#1 the final expiry date after renewal must be less than 10 years away#2 .uk domain transfers are free of any charges by Astutium, and are free to do at all reputable .uk registrars. There are some who have started asking you to pay to move your domain away which you will either need to pay to the losing registrar, or you can contact Nominet on 01865 33 22 11 who will update the TAG on all your domains for a single 10+VAT (GBP 12) fee

Despite ‘x’ and it’s followup ‘x3’ being the most popular themes for cpanel (as well as being the most widely extended themes in use by hosting companies) the authors have decided to concentrate on the ‘paper lantern’ style for all future features.

A shame, and we will really miss the X-style (and our highly customised and feature enhanced versions for mail, forwarding, wordpress and ecommerce hosting) 🙁

One of the steps in deprecating the X3 themes has been to (optionally) make the default for new accounts the PL style – this helps for new clients, but doesn’t help transition existing users.

Without warning, the latest version of cpanel/whm simply no longer works correctly without paper-lantern, but no option was provided to auto-update hosting accounts – they just stopped working !

It’s not all bad news though, as the fix for your VPS/Dedicated-Server is relatively simple …

IMPORTANT NOTICE – Domain Phishing Attacks

You may have heard that a massive phishing attack is ongoing against domain owners.

We have received multiple reports that some of those attacks are claiming to come from Astutium or Astutium-GRS to target our registrants in an attempt to obtain your client portal / registrar access login details, and then steal your domain names.

These fraudulent emails claim that a particular domain name has been suspended and ask users to click a link.

Astutium did NOT send these emails.The phishers have NOT obtained any of your information from Astutium.

We are asking all Astutium Domain Registrants to be extra vigilant of these fraudulent suspension notices.

In case you or your end users receive an email regarding your domain name:

Do not click any links [you should NEVER click links in an email]

Do not reply to the email [this only confirms to scammers that you read their junk]

Do not call any phone numbers listed within the email [as this is scam call-centre]

The emails look similar to:

Dear Sir/Madam,
The following domain names have been suspended for violation of the Astutium Limited Abuse Policy:
Domain Name: [domain]
Registrar: Astutium Limited
Registrant Name: [name from whois]
Multiple warnings were sent by Astutium Limited Spam and Abuse Department to give you an opportunity to address the complaints we have received.
We did not receive a reply from you to these email warnings so we then attempted to contact you via telephone.
We had no choice but to suspend your domain name when you did not respond to our attempts to contact you.
Click here and download [one scammer url is http://pewnafirma.pl/abuse_report.php?domain] a copy of complaints we have received.
Please contact us for additional information regarding this notification.
Sincerely,
Astutium Limited
Spam and Abuse Department
Abuse Department Hotline: 480-836-1395 [this is NOT our telephone number]

If you have any questions or concerns about this issue, don’t hesitate to contact our domains support team by ticket at www.astutium.com

To complain about the phishing scammers using your details for criminal intent, contact ICANN https://forms.icann.org/en/contact

Uber-eats food delivery system launches service without delivery - instead you pay them a commission and go to the restaurant to 'dine-in'. We've sent their CTO instructions on how to use internet time, as they're stuck on 1st April !
https://t.co/Opoir7rdkW